Thursday, July 14, 2016

God-Sib

I'm not huge on reading about birth these days but an article caught my eye and all of the old familiar lingo was comfortable and easy to read and I slipped into it like a comfy sweater. Then I came across this delicious morsel and I smiled. It was a cat who got the cream smile because I lived this and it's one of my favorite memories. I'm not as close to everyone who was there for me anymore but life happens and they have moved on which I don't resent or fight. I choose to celebrate what was and accept what is. In that moment of that season my "God Sibs" surrounded me and it was beautiful. I captured the paragraph and sent it to the one who I'm still close to and I felt her smile as she read it.

"In English, at least, we know that gossip, used as a noun, was first applied to the women who attended their neighbors’ childbirths. Although the word took on negative connotations, it originally comes from god-sib, that is, god-sibling: the woman who you’d name as your closest friend, and the godmother of your child. In early America, once a woman’s postpartum recovery period was over, she’d host a party for the god-sibs who had helped her during labor. They spoke of gathering around the “groaning table,” in reference to a table creaking under the weight of the food piled atop it and to the groaning of a woman in labor."

My God-Sibs cheered my baby right out taking pictures and laughing like heaven. Then, days later the ones who couldn't make it to the birth in time gathered around me and celebrated and drank champagne and ate coffee cake and passed my little munch around squeezing and crooning and swaying like a bunch of clucking hens at our brunch. Just saying "We did that old school!" made me incredibly happy. 
I'm probably the most nostalgic human alive. 

Source: http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2016/july/lets-be-honest-labor-is-kind-of-trauma.html

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